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Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6468 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese
| Message 17 of 26 17 January 2012 at 9:43pm | IP Logged |
Don't worry, I cannot understand that dialect either!
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 18 of 26 17 January 2012 at 9:50pm | IP Logged |
Sprachprofi wrote:
Don't worry, I cannot understand that dialect either! |
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Luckily, only a few characters spoke heavy dialect, so most of the play was far more comprehensible than that.
One book down, 4 to go, and then it's time to move the goalpost!
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 19 of 26 17 January 2012 at 10:04pm | IP Logged |
Is the spelling fixed in such German dialects or does it basically depend on the writer? This can certainly make reading more difficult.
Edited by Arekkusu on 17 January 2012 at 10:04pm
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 20 of 26 17 January 2012 at 10:12pm | IP Logged |
Arekkusu wrote:
Is the spelling fixed in such German dialects or does it basically depend on the writer? This can certainly make reading more difficult. |
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I suspect it depends on the writer, though I'm not certain. That the book is from 1889 doesn't help in that regard either.
My choices in the airport were the "Nobelpreis bibliothek" collection, or some truly lowbrow pulp, and the former seemed to have 3 books by German authors. Since I can't stand Mann, I bought only the other two. Not that I have anything against lowbrow pulp, but I prefer science fiction and fantasy to Twilight, murder mysteries, and romance novels, all of which I tend to find unreadable, and the selection was very small.
On another topic, for anyone fancying watching a short German political speech with Esperanto subtitles, check out Abgeordnetenhaus - Piratenpartei (2) Christopher Lauer zur Regierungserklärung 12.1.2012.
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| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6468 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese
| Message 21 of 26 17 January 2012 at 10:28pm | IP Logged |
I told you to bring more books! ;-)
Could have bought a number of them for the same money you just spent in the airport, too.
Dialects have no fixed spelling because they are not generally written. People speak
dialect and write Hochdeutsch. Here's a song in Kölsch (Cologne dialect), translated into
German and English:
http://www.learnlangs.com/blog/2011/11/09/9th-of-november/
Much more readable! What you found must have been the worst kind of Bavarian, or possibly
the dialects shifted towards Hochdeutsch since then.
Edited by Sprachprofi on 17 January 2012 at 10:29pm
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 22 of 26 01 February 2012 at 9:21pm | IP Logged |
I enjoyed the book, though!
The rest of January was a disaster as far as language learning went, though quite socially and intellectually satisfying other than that. I read a lot - of nonfiction, in English. My evening-long dabbling with Georgian basics at a pub was also quite fun, and I was amused to be correcting someone in German rather than the usual other way around. I've also somehow ended up teaching someone the basics of Esperanto. On the 31st, I slotted in half an hour of German political videos and 60 pages of "Paul à Québec" too.
Here's to a fresh start in February. It's going better already; I've used some German today. I spent several minutes talking to Sprachprofi about a specific topic this evening, with no preparation. I blocked on a few basic words, and didn't know a few more that I wanted to use, but it went fairly well. She kindly corrected my more ostentatious pronunciation and grammar mistakes, too.
Edited by Volte on 01 February 2012 at 9:27pm
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 23 of 26 01 February 2012 at 11:06pm | IP Logged |
I've just finished "Paul à Québec" (187 pages). It started off ok, but the last 2/3rds were fairly sad - first a Dickens-esque childhood story, and then over a hundred pages about terminal cancer. It was a graphic novel/comic-style book, so not all that rich in text. I missed a handful of words - especially the Quebec-specific ones.
Oddly, I had a conversation with Sprachprofi in almost-fluent basic French after finishing it. I'm not used to French coming to me actively, so it was a bit unexpected.
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 24 of 26 02 February 2012 at 12:29am | IP Logged |
I've planned a relatively dense week of German out with Sprachprofi this evening. I've also had better luck pronouncing some recalcitrant sound combinations in German. At long last, 'zu' is no longer evading me. That's taken a few years.
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